We bought heaps of high quality sheets for our apartment, and then the managing agent said she wasn’t going to use them because she wanted to use her own sheets. I can understand her argument – she manages several properties and taking the sheets out to wash would result in mixing up sheets between properties, so easier for her to just use her own. But now that we’re managing it ourselves, I’m happy to be able to use the sheets we had bought!
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I definitely find loud music incredibly annoying. But I felt like that even when I was younger. Didn’t stop me from dancing up front near the amps at music festivals, though. 
I have some slight hearing loss in the conversational range, which results in something called auditory processing disorder. If there is other ambient sound, it’s hard for me to make out what someone is saying. That was the case even when I was in my 30s. I could never understand how people could carry on conversations in noisy bars.
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I knew being hard of hearing was keeping me young!
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I also agree with this! we have 3 listings on the farm and can do all 3 on a same day turnover. That probably only happens a few times per month, but it’s doable! When we know triple turnover day is coming we make sure during the week to do all the extra cleaning things (like the rubber seal of the fridge, tops of cabinets, check curtains, behind the sofa, tighten bolts in chairs, spray pesticide under outdoor furniture, things we can eyeball and decide to skip on a triple turnover day). My mum when she visits thinks we must have the cleanest houses in Australia, because they are vacuumed and mopped 4 times a week! (we never ever skip the vac/mop part)
We generally do 1-2 night stays so guests aren’t leaving a huge mess. And as we are cleaning 3-4 times per week, the cottage stays really clean. We know that sometimes we can skip moving the sofa out to clean behind it if we did it the day before, and we don’t need to dust the vent more than once a week. We have reduced/removed all knick knacks, so we don’t have many things to put back in place, or to dust.
We have some other tricks too, spare pillow/blankets are in the drawer, not on the bed.
The microwave is not plugged in, so we know if someone used it and it will need a proper wipe down, or just a quick check.
The toastie machine we also put a box of baking paper on top, if that is moved we know someone used it.
the bathtub handle we angle at 7oclock, so if not used we just inspect it but there’s no need to do a full spray down, soak and wipe. It’s also polished chrome so we’d see fingerprints.
the shampoo bottles we set up in a certain way to know if they were touched.
We know all the spots where dust settles every day, and we know when we last dusted the vents etc, i’m not sure an outside cleaner retains that level of detail if they are cleaning many places.
We leave a mop in the cottage and I’m looking into buying the Aldi (Dyson dupe) stick vacuum and leaving that down in our cottage, that’s also another time saver. We keep a lot of supplies in a cupboard in the spare room. We used to forget things all the time and the return trip back to the main house is 5mins, so I made a spreadsheet that we consulted before heading down. We have a dedicated cleaning trolley just for the airbnbs.
Any little things we can do to save us time, without effecting quality, we look to do.
H I L A R I O U S!!
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haha, same! I do not want to end up on tiktok! I now have a $10 fee for short stays (95%) and i just pushed my price up a smidge. I might even consider going to no fee next year, and adding it to my listing “features”. I did add a line about “no chores to do on departure day”. I stayed in a place last year and she had a very long list of things to do that really put a lot of pressure on us, and I had to make sure everyone was up early and gave them all jobs, I still remember the stress of that morning about that stay.
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What an excellent idea!
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Those are all really great tips to know what does and doesn’t need cleaning!
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I have a cleaner, but I schedule myself to clean every 2nd or third time to insure it stays up to my standards. I do not charge a cleaning fee, I build it into the price.
RR
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I really wish I could. but, I havnt figured out a good way to make it work for our situation yet. We get a huge mix of guests. We are lake front, so, our average stay is 2 - 3 nights vacation. But, we are also 1/2 way between lots of different large towns so we also get a lot of 1 night stays where people spend the night on their way to someplace else. We also get a few longer stays, our current guests just extended to 10 days.
With cleaning fees, the 1 night stay ends up being ~200 which makes it very viable market for us.
But, if I charged 600 for a 3 night stay, I would be priced out of the market. And, 2,000 for a 10 night stay just doesnt make sense at all .
Yes, I know, I can put in discounts. 3 day discounts, week long discounts, etc. But, if I put 200 a night as my base rate, it would price me out of the market.
The only solution I can see would be the 2 night minimum and then I think I could price it effectively, but, then I would lose the lucrative 1 night stays. (its a lot of cleaning, but, im happy for the boost in income if they are willing to pay it).
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Mine as well, so that is what I base it on. It works for me, I do not worry if it deters longer bookings.
I do not offset with discounts.
RR
And does everyone who cleans for themselves work full time also?
I have 2 cleaning fees set up, short stay and longer.
for short stay I have it set to $1 for 2 listings (the simple 1 room listings) and more for longer stays (varies across the 3 other listings).
I advertise NO CLEANING FEES ON SHORT STAYS! (technically it’s $1 but you can’t activate the 2 tier option without putting in an amount for short stays, i thought I could offset that by leaving a $1coin on the table near the guest manual … in case any pedant ever complains)
I’m glad to see others who understand that one night stays can be lucrative! it’s more work, but as i outlined earlier, if you are doing 4 turnovers/week the cleaning is not difficult. I also check my local competition and quite a few have 2night minimums.
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ah no. We run 3 listings, that is the f/t job! And I’m a freelance photographer, so I squeeze in jobs when I can. My daughter is considering looking for a casual job in a winery, just to get wine industry experience. Of course if you have a f/t job you can’t do turnovers yourself.
yes, I work full time (teacher) and someone asked my age, I’m 53. This is my retirement money, I just wanted to get it started before I actually retire.
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I am self-employed as an upholsterer. Sometimes I have a ton of work, sometimes little. But as I work from home, I can set my own hours, unlike you.
However, regardless of how much upholstery work I have, as a single person homeowner, I am always busy full time with something. Yard work, repairs, painting, my vegetable garden, etc. etc.
And although I can set my own hours for the upholstery work, there are often deadlines to get projects done for clients. That is why I have never taken back-to-back str bookings- I may not be able to drop everything to clean the guest space.
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I clean myself and have a full-time job. And a kid. I just require a day between bookings, so I always clean in the evenings.
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Agreed. I have a 3 night minimum and charge a $30 per stay cleaning fee. I do about 1/3 of the cleaning and my housekeeper does 2/3. This is comfortable for me and maximizes profit.
One thing that helped me was shopping around for cleaning services. My previous company charged $200 a service, my new company (much smaller outfit) charges $100. I was shocked at the difference so maybe try shopping around some more?
I am self employed. I may star calling myself semi-retired soon:)
RR
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often the difference is whether the outfit is legitimate and paying tax and insurance or taking on self employed cleaners responsible for their own.
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I was surprised how much faster and easier it got within the first month and totally agree that no one would clean it as well as me!
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